We're doing this for a reason: Because we believe in it. - Jen DeWaele

KALAMAZOO, MI -- On a typical fall afternoon, the
Peace House on Phelps Avenue in the Eastside neighborhood is bursting with
noisy elementary kids, finishing their homework from school and chomping on a
homemade trail mix. The middle school kids play basketball outside, slam
dunking a hoop that they lowered for the occasion.

The Peace House, an after-school program for Eastside kids in Kalamazoo, is more than a house, its owners say.

The Peace House was started by two couples, Molly Mechtenberg
and Jerry Berrigan, and Jen and Mike DeWaele, plus their own children. They own
two homes on the Eastside.

"We're not just coming in after school from four to six and
leaving, locking up and going home," Mechtenberg said.

Their philosophy, based on the Catholic Worker Movement,
aims to do less "Band-Aid" work and more deep roots work that looks at the
basis of injustices, like hungry kids and homeless people, through the lens of
the gospel. A lot of work is done by just being there.

"When we graduated, we all left Kalamazoo, probably thinking
we'd never be back," Mechtenberg said.

They went their own ways after graduation, but kept in touch
because they were friends. They still had very common interests of living in
intentional communities and were working in cities doing just that.

"For the first eight years out of college we all did very
similar work on similar principles," said Berrigan, whose late father, Philip Berrigan, was a famous peace activist. "Ultimately what we're
doing here is our life's work."

When Mechtenberg and Berrigan were ready to finally find a
place to settle down and start a community, they began talking with the DeWaele's,
who were living in back in Kalamazoo at the time.

"We very much come from a conviction that our society is unjust
and unfair how it's set up," Berrigan said. "A lot of that has to do with
decades of economic injustice and racism. It's not OK. We think we all have a
responsibility there."

Unsure of where to plant their community in Kalamazoo, they received counsel
from Kalamazoo City Commissioner Don Cooney.

"He's the one that recommended the Eastside because he felt
like it was a neighborhood that was underserved," Mechtenberg said. "We had
heard that from different people, not just him. That's why we decided on
the neighborhood."

They moved into a
house on Phelps Avenue with the DeWaeles in 2006, renting the house and raising
money nationally to start the Peace House.

"We were getting our name out at that point," she said.

When the property next door went into foreclosure, they bought that house and began renovations.

"If we showed you pictures of what it used to look like, it
was just a big jumble of weeds and brush and garbage and old trees that had
fallen down," Mechtenberg said. "It was absolutely unusable when we moved in. It was
actually kind of scary."

For one or two years they developed the houses and the
backyard, fixing up the place. They built a wooden playground in their shared
backyard and finished it before summer 2009 with help from volunteers and
funding from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation.

"It just all kind of fell into place," she said.

Serving the neighborhood is a full-time commitment. They
spend a lot of time planning lessons, activities and troubleshooting problems that
arise.

With their two homes, they're at capacity for the number of
kids that can attend and have one-on-one homework help.

"You could have six to eight peace houses in this
neighborhood and still have tons of work to do," Mechtenberg said.

Still, their philosophy stays simple.

"People can make things complicated -- these very simple
beliefs about sharing and respecting other people," Jen DeWaele said. "We're
doing this for a reason: Because we believe in it."

Simplify anything and anything is simple, she said. The Peace House
doesn't just encompass education.

"It's about school, work and it's about relationships," DeWaele
said. "It's everything."

Erin
Gignac covers general assignment stories for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Email her
at egignac@mlive.com and follow her on Twitter.